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Civil Rights Group Faults How Police Are Policed

A civil rights group yesterday criticized New York City’s system of investigating police misconduct, charging that a civilian agency responsible for the task had failed to pursue complaints aggressively, and that punishment was too lenient when misconduct was established.

“Our analysis concludes that the civilian oversight system has failed,” said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the civil rights group.

The report, which the civil liberties union said was based mainly on data made public by the board, says the board has failed to keep pace as the volume of civilian complaints about police misconduct, ranging from improper use of force to discourtesy, has risen by 86 percent since 2000.

Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly dismissed the findings yesterday, calling the analysis flawed. “They are going to bash us every chance they get,” he said of the civil rights group.

Mr. Kelly attributed the increase in citizen complaints to the city’s 311 hot line, which went into operation in 2003, providing a convenient way to express displeasure with the police.

Andrew Case, a spokesman for the board, which employs 147 investigators, said its most recent records showed that 60 percent of the civilian complaints were being dismissed before they were completely investigated — but only because those who made those complaints decided not to follow through. He said none of those cases would have been dropped if those who had complained, mainly through calls to 311, had been willing to appear and make formal statements at the board’s office in Lower Manhattan, as city rules dictate.

And Franklin H. Stone, the chairwoman of the board, which was established as an oversight agency outside the Police Department in 1992, said that the board had fulfilled its City Charter mission “extraordinarily well.”

The civil rights group said the system of police conduct review was rife with problems resulting from obfuscation by the police, and a failure by the board and its staff to challenge the authority of top police officials.

Among its recommendations were that the city appoint a new inspector general to monitor the conduct of the police and the performance of the Civilian Complaint Review Board. And it criticized the current system of prosecuting officers when the board substantiates civilian cases. A legal unit of the Police Department now handles the prosecutions; the civil rights group suggested having prosecutors outside the department take the cases.

“The commissioner blatantly disregards C.C.R.B. recommendations time and time again,” Ms. Lieberman said. “It is ironic that a Police Department that pursues zero tolerance on the streets does not pursue zero tolerance in its own ranks.”

The report said that investigators for the board were often handicapped by the police’s delays in turning over documents or evidence, and that officers named in complaints frequently failed to show up for interviews.

When discipline of officers is ordered by the department, it rarely fits the severity of their misconduct, the group said. “In recent years, there has been a radically more lenient policy,” said Robert A. Perry, an analyst for the civil rights group who was in charge of the study released yesterday. In most cases, the discipline involves having a description of the officer’s misconduct included in his or her personnel file, verbal reprimands from the precinct commanders, or, in more serious cases, suspensions or lost vacation days.

The report found that the proportion of cases in which officers received the lightest penalty — a note in the file — had risen to 74 percent in 2006 from less than 25 percent in 2000. In the same period, it said, the proportion of officers who were suspended or lost vacation days dropped to 5 percent from 34 percent.

Mr. Case said some of the criticisms raised in the report, including the one about lenient discipline, had been made by the board itself. The board “has reported publicly and often on the decreasing severity of the department’s discipline,” he said.

Questions about the board’s recommendations were referred by a spokeswoman for the mayor to Mr. Case. He said appointing a new inspector general might have little impact.

“At what point do you stop and say the people that are in place need to get the issues resolved,” he said.

Paul J. Browne, a police spokesman, said the report yesterday ignored the resources being committed to monitoring the conduct of officers in cooperation with the Civilian Complaint Review Board and through the police internal affairs unit.

“True to form, the N.Y.C.L.U. has distorted or ignored the facts to reach its predetermined conclusions,” Mr. Browne said. He said about 1,000 members of the department were assigned to internal investigations, roughly the same number assigned to counterterrorism and intelligence.

A version of this article appears in print on , on page B3 of the New York edition with the headline: Civil Rights Group Faults How Police Are Policed. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe